Fire From Ashes
by LolaRitaVida
Summary: One Shot Alternate Ending for 5X08. A happy ending for everyone. And a Bethyl baby... because I think we all need more happiness at the end. Sorry not sorry. Don't read if you don't like this sort of thing. Rated T only because there might be one or two ugly words said in the heat of the moment. BETHYL. Stay strong guys. Please review.


**A/N: Hey everybody. I know eReedus and I posted a happy engagement chapter for The Hunger already today, but I couldn't resist giving you an alternate ending for 5X08 as well. It's a little dark at the beginning because I had to tie it to that piece of rubbish… uh, I mean the episode from last night. Please, lovelies, don't despair.**

**Fire From Ashes**

Beth was screaming. In a weird way, Daryl was happy about that. It had been her silence and stillness that had broken him before.

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In that hospital hallway she had been dead. Daryl had finally mustered the courage to scoop her up and carry her away. When he finally was able, he heard her raspy breath. He continued to hold her close as he carried her out of the hospital, knowing it was just her final throes of life ebbing away. He was set to find solace that she would die in a safe place. In his arms. And not lost and alone among strangers. Even when Maggie had fallen to her knees outside the hospital, Daryl had ignored her and carried on. Straight to the backside of the fire engine that had sat running, waiting to carry Beth off safe into the sunset. Except the plan had gone wrong. The only thing that would be carrying Beth away now would be a set of angel wings on a course to heaven.

Daryl sank to his knees with Beth still in his arms, the fire truck sheltering the two of them from the sun and from all the others. He didn't cry. He was too numb for that. He just curled over her with his own body and sat still waiting for her gentle breath to end and cause the world to stop turning. And he waited. And waited. But it didn't happen. He just stared down at her, the sweat from his face dripping onto hers like tears, the tears that he couldn't shed yet.

Rick came to kneel beside them at some point, his warm firm hand planted steadily on Daryl's shoulder. Maggie didn't come. None of the rest of them came. Daryl didn't know it, but they understood. They knew this was his place and not theirs. They hadn't earned the privilege of being with Beth now. He had.

The sunny day faded to black stillness around Daryl. His eyes were open but he was slipping away from reality into a dark abyss. He was fine with that. All he wanted now was to sleep and never wake up. Maybe God would have pity and give him sweet dreams of Beth until walkers found him and devoured him mercifully. Dreams of him and Beth at the moonshine still. The way her pretty eyes had sparkled in the moonlight. The way her infectious grin glowed in the firelight of the inferno they created. The ecstasy on her face reflecting his own as they made love and pushed the cruelty of the past away that night. They had burned the shack together and then they had burned his ugly memories away in the heat of their passion.

When Beth gasped in his arms and her fingers flexed slightly, Daryl didn't see or hear it. He was far away, back safe in Beth's arms that night. The one night they had allowed themselves to share together. Rick heard her though, saw her move.

"Daryl?!" Daryl didn't hear him. Rick grasped Daryl's shoulder tight and shook. "Daryl! Dammit, Daryl? Give her to me!" Daryl was already gone, though, and it didn't take too much of a struggle to wrestle Beth's limp body from him. Rick left Daryl there, his tears finally starting to flow. He registered enough to know that Rick had taken her, probably to finish her before she turned. The shot to her head must not have done enough damage, Daryl thought somewhere in the back of his mind.

Beth had started to moan as Rick ran with her. He shouted for Glenn as he ran. "Get that fucking doctor. Help me get her inside. Somebody get Daryl and bring him."

Abraham and Tara had struggled to carry Daryl's limp silently weeping body back into the shelter of the building. Rosita wiped at his face with a cool wet cloth after they deposited him on a waiting room couch.

The officers and others who had decided to stay were terrified to see Rick's group return but they didn't raise a hand to them. Just stood aside and waited as Rick ordered the doctor to help Beth. "She's breathing. Moving. She's alive. Help her."

The doctor, "Edwards" his name tag read, barely looked at her before shaking his head. "She's dying." He looked at the bearded man warily. "You do understand she's been shot in the head?" Beth moaned again weakly on the gurney in front of them. That put a frown on the doctor's face. "We have limited resources. I can't help her. You should put her out of her misery. She doesn't deserve this." Beth's head shifted slightly toward Rick and something twisted in him, a change showing in his face as he gazed down at helpless Beth Greene.

Rick's Colt was suddenly pointed at the doctor's forehead, Rick's dark seemingly soulless eyes steady on the doctor. "I'll make it very clear to you. She dies, you die. Get to work."

It took days, but Beth gradually started to improve a little at a time but still didn't regain consciousness. After a close examination, Edwards had found that the wound had fractured Beth's skull but it hadn't fully penetrated it. The wound that her thick blonde hair hid was surprisingly superficial but she did have swelling from the impact and a lot of bleeding as was common with head wounds.

Rick stayed by Beth's side at all times, frequently asking various family members about Daryl as they came around. Most just looked lost. Maggie wouldn't even enter the room, just sat outside or peeked around the doorway helplessly, too afraid and too ashamed to come near. Carol shook her head "no" when Rick started to ask her. "Did you tell him?" Rick asked. "Yes. But he can't hear us Rick. Doesn't want to hear us. He doesn't want to hear anythin'. He's lost."

The doctor checked on Beth constantly, monitoring her blood pressure, her vital signs. He was surprised but seemed pleased that the young woman seemed to be holding steady and improving. She had lost a lot of blood and it was still to be seen if she would have any lingering dysfunction from the damage to her head, but she was alive and that's all that mattered to the people who loved her.

On entering her room on the second day, the doctor narrowed his eyes and grinned at the sheriff keeping watch over the slight blonde. "It's you, then?"

Rick gave the doctor a look of warning. Rick didn't like or trust the man. Instinct screamed at him when Edwards was around and Rick watched him like a hawk around Beth. "Pardon me?" Rick's voice seethed with loathing. He held this man partly, or maybe even more so than that, responsible for Beth's predicament. Her enslavement. The scars on her face. Everything.

Rick was surprised at what came next. "You're the father. Or didn't you know Beth was pregnant?" Edwards grinned with malice and dislike at the sheriff, probably thinking that he had in some way disrespected Beth, forced her into something like the hospital guards had tried to do.

Rick rose to his feet and leaned over Beth toward the doctor on the other side of the bed. "Excuse me?"

"She was carrying when she came to us. Must have been one of your group and you're the one keeping vigil. I'd say she's about six weeks along. Something like that, or maybe a bit longer. It's hard to tell at this stage. Congratulations." He added dryly. The doctor checked her vitals one more time and walked away.

Rick's eyes cut back and forth as he thought through the situation. Clips of Daryl's explanation as they sat beside the truck after Joe's men… "I was with 'er for a while." It made sense, why Daryl was so broken. Why no one could reach him. Daryl had been with Beth and not just running beside her. Daryl's heart was broken because he had given it to this girl and now he thought she was lost to him forever. Rick smoothed back the blonde locks from Beth's face and smiled down at her gently. This girl was a light for more than just Daryl. Rick felt a little bit of his old self trying to push back through the darkness he had embraced and Rick thought he might just let it. Small miracles. She had been a mother to his child and now she would get the chance to live. To be a mother herself.

In the small waiting room at the end of the hall, Daryl was in a state of semi-consciousness. His eyes were mostly open but he was catatonic. Carol, Tara, Rosita, Michonne, and even Glenn had spoken to him quietly over and over and tried to bring him 'round. The fact was, unfortunately, that Daryl Dixon was broken now. The light of life that had always been one baby's breath from extinguishing had been lit into an inferno by Beth Greene during their brief time together. When she was taken, the fire had burned down to a single glowing flame with only the hope of finding her keeping it lit. Then the vision of her death had doused every lingering ember in his soul. Now the pit inside him was cold and dry.

After the fourth day of no response from the wasting archer, the whole family started becoming increasingly alarmed. When Beth started stirring gently, a reassuringly positive sign, Rick finally went in search of Daryl. Kneeling beside the couch where Daryl still lay motionless, starving and dehydrating, Rick leaned over. "She's alive Daryl. She needs you. She's waiting brother. Did you hear what I said? She's alive."

Rick shook him again as he had done outside days earlier but there was no response. Michonne leaned over the back of the couch, returning Rick's frown. "Help me get him up, we'll take him to her, let him see for himself." In the end it took four of them to heft Daryl's tall dead weight onto the bed beside his girl. Rosita and Carol helped place him in the bed so that Beth was cradled in his arms. Rick stood back, hoping that feeling her warmth against him would bring the archer back from this brink. Now all they could do was wait. And hope…

Daryl heard Beth calling to him. It was slight, but he heard her. He thought it had finally happened. Somehow he had finally made it to the other side. Broken through to find her once and for all. Daryl knew that he didn't belong where she was. In heaven. But he wasn't going to question how he'd ended up here. She called to him again and he opened his eyes wide, searching for her. Longing for a glimpse of that sweet warmth he'd come to know he would find waiting in her eyes.

He found it. She was right in front of him, safe and warm in his arms. He squeezed onto her, pulling her as close as he could get as he let tears fall silently into her blonde hair, leaning his head down into hers. "Ow Daryl." And as she pushed him away feebly, Daryl realized that they weren't in heaven. They were in a hospital. THAT hospital. And Beth still had those scars. And her hair was still stained from the blood… But she was alive. She was alive and smiling, even as her small hand reached to press tenderly against the bandage covering part of her head.

Tears were still flowing from Daryl's eyes as he pulled her back into him and held her close, just not as tight as before and being mindful of her wounds. As Daryl came back into himself, his eyes rolled heavenward and he caught sight of movement across the room. Rick had been standing watch again, like a guardian angel over two lost souls. The look Rick gave Daryl said it all. This was real, it was ok, and everything was going to be fine now. They had ALL of their family back together and no one was going to tear them apart again.

Beth was screaming. In a weird way, Daryl was happy about that. It had been her silence and stillness that had broken him before.

When Beth told Daryl that he was going to be a father, he had smiled incoherently at first, until he really comprehended what she was telling him. He was terrified for her. He was terrified for the baby. Terrified of what kind of father he would be. Terrified in general. Daryl Dixon could overcome any obstacle as long as Beth was by his side, but this was one mountain he had never contemplated climbing. But it didn't matter. They were half way up the hill now and there was no turning back. He wanted to be happy but the threat of loss niggled at Daryl constantly, awake and in his dreams. Now the moment was here and Daryl's vision was blurring at the edges with panic.

Beth screamed again, calling out for Maggie this time. She was already there at her sister's side. She had barely left her in peace after Beth had recovered from her head wound and broke the happy news about the baby. They had reconciled quickly, of course. Maggie explaining that she simply couldn't think on anything where Beth had been concerned because the pain was too much. Beth, being Beth, forgave her instantly… of course.

After another hour of Beth struggling they had forced Daryl out of the room. Edwards had ordered Daryl out after he had gotten frantic and started yelling and pacing. Carol and Rosita rushed in to take his place at Beth's side. She was losing blood and that hadn't seemed normal. Or maybe it was, he didn't know but it scared the shit out of him. And her screams had gotten louder and inconsolable as the birth progressed. There were no drugs to help her and the baby was large. It meant he or she was healthy but it was scary as hell. Beth was so small and Daryl was petrified.

Rick had had to drag Daryl from the room and he continued to hold on to him from behind as they and the rest of their extended family winced and worried over every one of Beth's cries.

Until there was sudden silence that stretched on and on. There were no excited calls, no cries of joy or of healthy babies. Just eternal silence. And Daryl's heart stopped. For the second time in his life, darkness crept into his vision and the world halted around him. He slumped against Rick and didn't even bother choking back the sobs that wracked him. An eternity of silence to Daryl, however, was only about 60 seconds. And then… The child's cries and Beth's gasping sobs of happiness were like an angel's chorus to Daryl. He broke free from Rick's grasp and ran back to Beth's room.

When the small group around Beth saw him in the doorway, they moved away respectfully, allowing Daryl to see the woman that was now his wife and his child in all their glory. "Daryl," Beth sighed contentedly as she nestled back against the pillows, "Come meet your son." She was holding the child out to him and it was an invitation to heaven.

Where there was once only darkness, now there was nothing but light. Blinding intense light. Dawn was breaking and Beth was the sun. Her warmth and the promise of a new tomorrow in her eyes and in presence of their son blinded him to any darkness this world once held. Daryl felt the warmth of Beth's life like flames caressing his soul and he gave in to the feeling. Daryl let Beth burn away all that had come before. The past lay in ashes at her feet until only the brilliance of what could be, of hope and light, of fire and passion, was all that was left for Daryl to behold.


End file.
